DVD companies have brought back the “longbox”

Remember back in the early days of compact disc sales when CD retailers would put the jewel box inside a long cardboard box designed to fit existing album racks? There was a lot of concern from the environmental lobby about the waste of paper and filling of landfills.

Eventually, the longbox disappeared due to pressure and the adoption of CD as a replacement format for the long-play album. Now, most kids growing up don’t even know what a record album is, unless they watch a DJ program on MTV or the like.

Another conservation program convinced McDonalds to give up the Styrofoam containers they were using for their Big Macs and other hamburgers in favor of paper or cardboard wraps. The new packaging still fills up landfills, but is supposedly a lot more biodegradable.

Now the DVD companies have brought back their own version of the longbox. It’s the cardboard wrapper that reproduces the artwork on the outside of the plastic Amaray case in exact detail. I could understand it if there were an inside page to the cardboard wrap, but there usually isn’t. The wrap is unnecessary and just adds excess weight and cost to the disc.

The biggest offender is Disney, who wraps every one of their major cartoon releases in one of these cardboard wraps. Warner Bros. has started doing it as well; the new “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” release is just the latest example.

I’m not normally a tree-hugger, but I’d like to start a drive, if no one else already has, to get the companies to stop this practice. It wastes effort (and money) to reproduce the already perfectly good artwork inside the plastic sheeting on the case. Why don’t you spend that money to bring back the inside liner notes that most of you have started eliminating?

Of course, the really ideal packaging would be to eliminate the plastic case altogether, like I’ve done with my old CD jewel boxes. At the recommendation of my Express-News colleague Jim Beal, I recently invested in the “Jewelsleeve.” (www.jewelseeve.com)

With my mobile DJ business, I have collected a large number of CDs over the years. Previously, I had built a large bookcase to accommodate them, which took up a six-foot by six-foot wall. Now I have all 1,300 in a rack that stands about four-feet high and two-feet deep. And I’ve thrown away all those breakable plastic jewel boxes.

The Jewelsleeve allows me to take the liner notes, the disc and the back card out of the jewel box and place it in a specially designed envelope that holds all three. This sleeve takes up considerably less space than a centimeter-wide jewel box and it doesn’t break at the hinges.

While I’ve changed my buying habits from CDs to the MP3 format, I didn’t want to get rid of my old CDs. This new system enables me to store them in a much more convenient manner and preserve them longer, as they will not be scratched by the inside spindle of a jewel box (or it’s detritus).

A Google search found a company called DiscSox (discsox.com) that sells the same type of product, but it’s more expensive, even in quantity. However, they do have DVD sleeves that will accommodate most of the DVDs sold over the past few years. I’m not ready to purchase those yet, but as my collection grows (and if the price drops), I’ll be looking into it.